2025 Dakar Rally Content Pool
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2025 Dakar: Rain and mistake in roadbook bring Lategan's lead to nothing
A hellish Stage 7 of the 2025 Dakar Rally made for a gruelling day for overall leader Henk Lategan who saw his lead neutralised to just 21 seconds over main rival, Yazeed Al-Rajhi, with Mattias Ekstrom gaining on both front runners having scored his best result of the competition in P2 behind the eventual Stage 7 winner, Brazilian Lucas Moraes.
Shock Rain and roadbook issue cause chaos in Stage 7
Toyota has come back to the top following their reliability issue caused defeat to X-Raid Mini in Stage 6, with Moraes being the first to reach the bivouac following a chaotic Stage 7 which saw the event's director fly down himself to help correct a roadbook mistake that caused entrants to get lost whilst trying -and failing- to validate a checkpoint due to the map issue.
However, this was not the only issue drivers and riders had to face, with a shock bout of rain throwing yet another spanner in the works for all competitors. The event organisers did do their best to correct the paerticipants' finishing times, with Dacia's Nasser Al-Attiyah coming back to finish P4 11m15s adrift from Moraes after having been 40m off the Brasilian prior to the adjusments.
Ford Raptor's Mitch Guthrie, finished behind Swedish teammate, Ekstrom to give Ford its best result in their first year as full fledged entrants. Toyota's Seth Quintero, and Dacia's Cristina Gutierrez, finished P5 and P6 respectively. Toyota customer, Al Rajhi, came home in P7 with Lategan enduring his most difficult Stage in the rally yet reaching the bivouac in P15, seeing his lead narrowed down to only 21 seconds.
2025 Dakar Rally Standings after Stage 7
Pos | Driver | Car | Time/Gap
1. Henk Lategan | Toyota | 33h43m58s
2. Yazeed Al-Rajhi | Toyota | 21s
3. Mattias Ekstrom | Ford | 10m25s
4. Nasser Al-Attiyah | Dacia | 21m57s
5. Mitch Guthrie Jr | Ford | 40m01s
6. Matthieu Serradori | Century | 54m20s
7. Juan Cruz Yacopini | Toyota | 1h13m05s
8. Seth Quintero | Toyota | 1h28m32s
9. Joao Ferreira | Mini | 1h58m25s
10. Brian Baragwanath | Century | 2h07m38s
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